


Ossuary

by chatcolat



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-05
Updated: 2017-03-05
Packaged: 2018-09-28 11:26:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10098452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chatcolat/pseuds/chatcolat
Summary: One shot about Nico and Will going on a not-date trip to an ossuary and coming back boyfriends or something.





	

Nico wasn’t sure why he was spending so much more time around Camp Half Blood. Though he had been in charge of performing proper funeral rights for all those who died fighting the Earth Mother, Greek or Roman, he ended up back with the Greeks.

At first he spent most of his time with Jason, and then Piper by extension. With a lot of support and encouragement from Jason, he finally told Piper that he was gay. It was not easy, but it no longer made him shake and feel like vomiting. Being a daughter of Aphrodite, the news made Piper ridiculously excited.

“We should find you a boyfriend,” she insisted.

“No, really, let’s not,” he insisted, trying not to glance at the Apollo cabin. Piper was mourning Leo still - they all were - and focusing on Nico seemed to make her a lot happier.

“Play along and I promise to keep her from causing any actual harm,” Jason pleaded under his breath. Nico nodded. He would never say it out loud, but he liked the attention.

“You can’t tell anyone else, though, okay?” He explained.

“Duh,” Piper replied. “Also, I am SO glad you got over Percy. You can do better.”

She scouted around the camp grounds, watching kids play volleyball, canoe across the lake, or pick strawberries in the fields. Her eyes landed on Drew Tanaka, whispering with a few of her friends. She frowned thoughtfully. “Also, if anyone gives you trouble, or tries to push you into anything, you let me know and I’ll bring the full wrath of Aphrodite down on them.”

Nico turned beet red while Jason laughed and said something along the lines of _I told you telling Piper would be a good idea._

 

There were a lot of things Nico liked about camp. He liked his cabin, even if he was the only one in it. He had been decorating, making it more like a home - it wasn’t perfect, but it was better. He liked the lake and the strawberry fields. Sitting out in the late summer sun stirred far off memories of his childhood in Italy. Those memories used to be painful, a too-bright spot in a world of dark, but with things looking a lot less gloomy lately, lying in the grass on a summer day no longer made his heart ache. He was starting to prefer spending time in the sun to time in the dark of the Hades cabin. Sure, he still liked the shadows – they would always be a part of him, his birthright – but he realized that didn’t mean he couldn’t live in the light too.

When he went to visit Hazel for a weekend in New Rome, she commented, “Nico, you look so healthy! I swear you used to look covered in talcum.” He hadn’t noticed, but his skin had darkened to the deep olive shade it had been in his childhood. He felt better, stronger. His head no longer ached with poisonous thoughts. His chest no longer hurt all the time as it tried to carry the weight of his hopelessness.

“Piper and Jason are going to go look for Leo again, but they’re settling here for school,” Nico told her. It made him a little sad. He would miss having them around all the time. The thought of being _known_ used to terrify him, but now? Now it was comforting. He would miss that comfort.

“Percy and Annabeth’ll be back in New York though!” _You won’t be alone._ Hazel knew him too, just a different side of him. The dark, lonely thoughts of children of Hades, lost in time, swirled through her head too.

“Plus you can always come visit us!” Frank insisted. Nico smiled. Frank meant it, and that meant the world to him.

“Of course. Jason wanted help with the postmortem aspects of his Pontifex Maximus job,” said Nico. “But I’ve been making friends at Camp Half Blood, too. The kids of Apollo won’t leave me alone.” He said it like he was annoyed, but he didn’t mind. Especially when it was really just one particular son of Apollo that seemed to take pleasure in constantly inserting himself into Nico’s life. He should tell them, but he wasn’t sure he was ready. Hazel was, after all, still adapting to a lot of modern conventions. Having a homosexual brother was perhaps a little too much just yet.

 

Will Solace had proved the words he spoke during the battle with Gaea true. Nico was wanted at Camp. People invited him to play volleyball, pick strawberries, and even play capture the flag (as long as he kept his “Underworld magic” out of it). He had been dragged into learning how to row a canoe. More than a few campers got a kick out of seeing the son of Hades struggle at something.

“It’s comforting for them to see you aren’t perfect,” Will explained after fishing Nico out of the lake.

“Of course I’m not perfect,” his face was bright red. He hoped Will thought it was from nearly drowning and not because their hands were touching.

Will laughed. “Yeah, you’re just the strongest demigod of the century or something. No big deal.”

Nico scowled and a few kids around the docks backed up. Will shoved him back in the lake.

“I thought you were my doctor!” He spluttered as he came back up, desperately trying to grab the edge of the dock. He could swim, but just barely. It was more of a dog paddle.

“Yes. Exactly. You need to stop glaring at everyone and lighten up or your face will get stuck like that.” He made a very exaggerated imitation of Nico frowning. “Doctor’s orders.”

Nico grabbed Will’s unguarded ankle and pulled him in as well. When Will resurfaced, the two of them put on quite a show of trying to beat each other to the ladder. A small crowd gathered around and to watch, laughing at their theatrics. Nico could very safely say he had never enjoyed an afternoon more.

 

He told Reyna first during one of their Iris messages. After she moved back to New Rome, they had made a regular talking schedule. Nico felt like he now had two sisters in the Roman camp.

“I hope he’s better than a legacy of Apollo,” she muttered. But when Nico reminded her of the boy that had bickered with him through the entire battle with Gaea, she smiled. It wasn’t like Reyna was giving him her blessing, but just being able to talk about it made him feel more confident, less anxious. His heart palpitations no longer scared him after that.

 

The night before Piper and Jason left for their cross-country search for Leo, he told them about how his heart sped up and little butterflies fluttered to life in his stomach every time Will smiled.

Piper, who had been anxious the past few days as they prepared for their trip, lit up like it was Christmas. “Perfect choice. Excellent choice.”

“Don’t push him,” Jason chided. Piper shook her head.

“I’m not, am I Nico?” Nico didn’t want to turn this into a thing, he just wanted some advice. He didn’t want this to end the way his slow, painful burn for Percy had been.

“Just tell him,” Piper told him. “Be straightforward and upfront. I wasted so much time trying to get Jason to pay attention – or, well, that’s what Hera made me think – but really, it _is_ a waste of time and energy.”

“And if he’s not into guys and I make a fool of myself?”

The two exchanged a look.

“Nico,” Jason began. “The whole camp knows Will is gay. He even got some people together last year to go to Pride in the City.”

This was news to Nico. Most things about Camp life were, but this was especially new. It made his old anxiety bubble up again. What did people think, then, about how close the two of them had grown? They were just friends after all. But did people think it was more than that?

“Just go for it!” Piper encouraged. “And then Iris message us EVERYTHING. If you need any curses from Aphrodite, I’ll rush back here in a heartbeat. I also think Clarisse will smite anyone who gives you trouble. She can be a brute, but her hearts in the right place.”

“Do what makes you happiest,” Jason smiled at him.  Nico smiled back. It didn’t hurt anymore.

 

 

A few days after Jason and Piper left, Nico was laying on one of the hills that overlooked a strawberry patch. It was a pleasantly warm day and he had drifted off. It wasn’t a true sleep – he could still hear camp life going around him– but peaceful enough anyways. There was a cool breeze coming off the water, rustling the soft grass. The smell of ripe strawberries hung in the air. A shadow passed over his face and the grass beside him rustled. He cracked an eye open and caught a glimpse of Will settling into the grass next to him with the small backpack he carted around sometimes. It was mostly medical textbooks with disturbing images and gruesome descriptions of various ailments.

He was flipping through a notebook, no doubt filled with notes in his meticulous handwriting. How a dyslexic wannabe doctor had that nice of handwriting, Nico would never know.

Jason’s words floated back over him.   _Everyone knows Will is gay_. Did that mean Will already liked him? Is that why he went out of his way to hang out with him? Were they still friends or had they become something more? _Friends._ How did you tell when that line was crossed? Could it be crossed without them even speaking a word of it? Nico snuck another peak at Will, opening his eyes just enough to see the boy, but not enough that would give him away.

“I know you’re awake,” Will said after awhile. Nico quickly closed his eyes.  

“I was sleeping,” Nico corrected. “You woke me up.”

Will shrugged but smiled when Nico finally opened his eyes and turned to face him. “You’ve been ‘sleeping’ up here all morning. You missed lunch, which is bad for your health. Time to wake up. I’m still your doctor.”

Nico laughed, and regretted it. Even when he didn’t mean to, his laughs still came out bitter. But Will either didn’t notice or was used to it by now.

“What’re you doing?” Nico asked casually, trying to get a better look at the notebook. It was filled with drawn images of different types of bone breaks, each bone carefully labeled, with detailed instructions on how to set them. Will was good at drawing. He took his studies a lot more seriously than Percy.

 School and studying were curious to Nico. He had barely attended a class since the 1930s, so things like college were not open to him. Percy and Annabeth would start school in New Rome next year and here Will was studying for a specialized medical program in New Rome designed for demigods who had a little more medical training than the average mortal college student. Will’s books fascinated him. He had even convinced Percy and Annabeth to let him look over some of the summer homework they brought when they visited on weekends. Annabeth explained a lot of it to him, but be struggled over the words – more from lack of formal education than the typical demigod dyslexia. Part of him wished he could go off to college with everyone else.

“Going over some notes from a few textbooks a son of Apollo in New Rome sent up. Just wanna get ahead, you know?” Will shrugged. Nico didn’t know, but he kept it off his face.

“Is that a thing people do, or just you?”

Will looked at him and grinned. When he smiled there was no denying that he was a son of the sun god. When he smiled, Nico wasn’t sure how long he could go on trying to sort through the endless stream of questions in his head. Friends or _friends?_

“It’s recommended, but I’ve already skimmed all the books for first year bio students, so…“

“Both?” Nico finished from him with a laugh. He sat up and looked over the book. Cliché as it was, Nico was already something of an expert of skeletons, even if some of the more scientific names escaped him. For example, he knew about the three small bones in the ear, but he didn’t know they were called the ossicles collectively (Will had a small note next to them: how they hell do you break these?). Will’s handwriting was _really_ nice. He smelled nice too. _No, stop that._  

“So, I was thinking,” Will smiled in a way more befitting a child of Hermes than Apollo. “There’s only a few days until camp closes for the summer, but a few weeks before school starts again – at least for me.”

Nico nodded. He had been trying to decide what to do with himself during the Camp offseason. He didn’t want to go back to traveling alone again, but he wasn’t sure what other options he had. Staying around Camp Half Blood while everyone else was gone seemed pointless.

“And I was thinking, you know, we could take a trip.”

“What?” Nico was caught off guard, the sentences churning like the Labyrinth down a path he hadn’t expected.

“Right,” Will looked a little embarrassed. “See, I was reading some stuff online, like weird places to go and what not, and I found this awesome church-“

“Full of bones?” Nico knew where this was going. “Because I’m the son of Hades?”

Will had moved from embarrassed to flustered. “Well, yes, but it’s actually really cool. There was this blind monk - no wait, back up – there’s this special kind of church with like some holy dirt, so a lot of people wanted to be buried there, but after awhile there was no space and they were trying to expand. So _then_ they start exhuming bodies and this blind monk starts making cool-,” he cleared his throat, “making art with them, so more people could buy plots to bury their dead, but the bones never leave consecrated ground.” He paused to take a breath then muttered, “I thought it was really cool. And I feel like you are the only one who isn’t going to judge me for that.”

 “Oh, I’m judging you, Son of Apollo.” Nico laughed. Will was good at making him laugh. Maybe if he did it enough it would stop sounding so disturbed.

“But, it’s cool right?”

Nico looked around. Generally, he tried to avoid talking about bones and things around other people. It added to the Son of the God of the Dead creep factor. But if a son of Apollo admits it first? And they were friends, right?

“Yeah, it’s pretty cool. Where is it?”

The anxiety in Will’s face melted into another one of those award-winning smiles. Nico felt a little dizzy.

“Just outside of Prague!” Will grinned. Nico opened his mouth to comment but Will beat him to it. “No, wait. See, I know it’s far. But we could fly there in less than a day! I don’t have a passport, and I bet yours expired like what, 70 years ago? But we can borrow the Apollo cabin chariot.”

“That sounds like an abuse of power,” Nico teased.

“Probably. But I haven’t left New York in years. Plus, there’s a bone chandelier.”

“A bone chandelier?” Nico really wanted to go, but there were so many things that could go wrong. Monsters could attack. Mortal police could discover their lack of papers. Nico might do something stupid and kiss him.

“Yes, wait a minute,” Will was on a roll and cut him off before he could voice the first two. “Let me finish dispelling all that negativity flowing out of you. You spent all summer in Europe, I know. But it was running from monsters and being captured and so on. Plus, with the giants and Gaia gone, most monsters tend to avoid you anyways right? So being a tourist is probably better. Plus, did I mention no soul-sucking shadow travel?”

Nico couldn’t argue. He wanted to go and the practical side of his brain seemed to be on holiday. Part of him even wished they could go back to Venice, but that was pushing it. “How are we funding this?”

“I found some very sweet deals for lodgings as long as we can forge some decent passports, and Connor owes me, so that is also easily taken care of. Do you have a bit of mortal money?”

“Funny enough, I have an account that’s been collecting interest since the 1940s.”

 

Nico was not really sure how Will had managed to book this trip so fast – the internet sure is amazing – or how they had managed to cross the north Atlantic with only two monster attacks, but three days after their conversation on the hill, Nico found himself wandering through the streets of Prague. Half the roads were cobbled and the buildings all looked like the world had when he was a kid. But it was still undeniably a 21st century city. As he sat at a Starbucks across from a tram stop he thought _I should bring Hazel here_. This place was timeless, which made it a perfect place for time displaced demigods.

“So,” Will started as he came back out to the table with their drink orders. Nico looked at his espresso suspiciously but said nothing as Will settled into his seat, looking content with whatever was mixed under all the whipped cream on top. “Prague is pretty cool.”

“We have Starbucks in America,” Nico pointed out. He tried not to make a face as he took a sip. It was not espresso. His displeasure did not escape Will’s notice.

“Okay, you are still obviously missing a few points of modernity. No one goes to Starbucks for their quality coffee.”

“They get those?” He pointed to the thing Will was happily drinking.

“Frappuccino,” Will provided.

Nico frowned. “Is that supposed to be Italian?”

Will shrugged and offered the drink to him. “It’s caramel.”

Nico looked at it with skepticism, but accepted it anyways. It was a lot better than his ‘espresso’. He handed it back longingly. “Yeah, okay, it’s good.”

“The trick is to not think of it as coffee,” Will said with a wink and took another big sip.   

Nico realized awhile ago Will made it hard for him to think straight, so he was not too surprised when he saw his hand reach out to pull the drink back for another sip.

“I can get you one,” Will laughed.

Nico shook his head as he handed it back. “Aren’t you still playing doctor? This much sugar’ll probably kill me.”

Will shrugged and pulled the lid off to eat some of the whipped cream. “So tomorrow we take the train out to Sedlec,” he stumbled over the Czech name, but it didn’t seem to bother him. “Should take and hour or so.”

“All this regular travel takes forever,” Nico muttered. Sure, it was easier to cross continents in a plane or a chariot, but the idea of taking a train for an hour when he could have just shadow traveled in a few minutes a few months ago? It hurt. He how long until he could start using his Ghost King powers again?

“Ha. No. Don’t even start. If you disappear into the shadows, this trip will suck. I can’t make excuses for this trip without you.”

“Aha, the real reason you wanted me to come along. I’m being used so you look less creepy for suggesting going on vacation to an ossuary.” Nico was joking, or at least, he said it like he was joking. Part of him worried it was true. The part of him that had no friends until a month was still convinced this was all a dream or some crazy trick concocted by some other campers. But no. They were friends, right? _Friends?_ Maybe?

“Yes, that exactly. I didn’t invite you for your company or anything,” Will said. Nico could appreciate the snarky tone. Will handed the drink back to Nico. “By the way, on a scale of one to umbra, how shadowy are you feeling today?”

“You aren’t actually my doctor,” Nico replied.

“No, but I am your friend. I’m allowed to worry.”

Nico wished making his heart stop fluttering was as easy as shadow travel.  “I’m fine. Probably a two or three – a solid ray of sunshine.” They both glanced down at his black jeans and skull tee-shirt and laughed.

After a moment of silently passing the Frappuccino back and forth, Will said, “I would be sad if you disappeared, though. Not just because it’d be hard to explain back home, but because I would miss you.” Will’s nervous eyes wouldn’t meet his, which only made Nico’s heart beat faster. If he was nervous too, did that mean he was trying to figure it out too? Were they friends or _friends_?

There was a tension in the air that wasn’t there before, like they both realized that sneaking away for a trip to Prague together was maybe not something normal friends did. Was this, sitting and drinking coffee together, a date?

_No, no, no_. Nico scolded himself. Thinking like this made his heart beat faster and the tumbling of wings in his stomach almost unbearable.

He reached for the Frappuccino and stood up. “Wanna explore the city?”

Will grinned. “There’s this giant radio tower with giant babies climbing up it.”

 

Sedlec Ossuary was tucked out of the way in the little town. They ended up going to another church first before getting directions to the church of bones.

“This is it?” Will asked. They stood in front of a much smaller church than the last one.

“I feel death,” Nico said by way of affirmation.

Will scoffed. “You said that about the last one.” It wasn’t his fault. Churches were haunted places. Funerary rites and graveyards left lots of spirits and bones hanging around. This could be applied to small European towns in general. So many dead over the centuries from war, plague, and hatred. It got overwhelming.

“Yeah, but this one has a skull on the gate.”

Will looked up and nodded. “Right. Here we come, bone chandelier!” He said it with a little too much enthusiasm but the other people milling about were either also tourists who understood the macabre interest or locals who were probably used to it. No one even glanced twice at Nico.

They walked through a tiny and crowded but loved graveyard and into the church. There was a small admittance fee they paid to a very bored looking youth, and then steps down into the crypt. Will hesitated at the top, his eyes fixed on the bones fixed to the walls. Some dangled down over the stairs. Others imitated the architecture, following arches around the ceiling. On a low wall over the stairs was what looked like a crucifix made of bones with femurs making sun rays around the skeletal representation of Christ. Nico thought it was kind of awesome.

“You can’t chicken out now.”

“Why are we here again?” He asked. For a second, Nico genuinely believed him. The doubts that any of this was real or possible swam around in his brain. Then his eyes met Will’s blue ones and Nico realized he wasn’t asking why he was here _with him_ , he was remembering his demigod mortality. Going into basements decorated with bones was definitely a no-no for children of the gods who didn’t want to die. “Nothing is like, gonna kill us down there right?”

Nico relaxed and tried to smile in a way that was comforting, but he wasn’t sure that was possible for a child of Hades in a church of bones. “No angry ghosts. The magic dirt must have been really good. Plus you’re with a son of Hades. This is my element – literally.”

Will nodded, then slipped his hand in Nico’s and started down the stairs. Nico, surprised, came stumbling after, his face growing warmer with each step. There were lots of tourists around them. Plenty of people to notice. What would they think? Would they turn away in disgust?

None of them paid the two teens any attention. Will’s hand was warm and a little sweaty from the summer heat. Nico never wanted to let it go.

“Oh my gods,” Will muttered as their eyes adjusted to the low light at the bottom of the stairs. There were giant mounds of bones all around them, piles taller than the two of them put together. An actual crucifix hung on a dark wall surrounded by skulls. Two smaller crucifixes like the bone one above stared at the body of Christ. Will was transfixed by the year and name on the wall next to them, made entirely out of curving human ivory.

“I like the style. Think I could get that in my cabin?” Nico joked. Will turned to him, a mischievous smile on his face, ready to make a comeback but he froze, his eyes fixed on something over Nico’s shoulder.

“I think you need that,” he gestured with a nod of his head, squeezing Nico’s hand a little tighter. Nico turned. How he had managed to miss it, he would never know, but there in the middle of the room was a giant chandelier made of bone.

“Yes,” he breathed. It was terrifying, but oddly beautiful. Nico didn’t know the names for all these bones, but he recognized jaws, and hips, and legs. Spines made up swooping candle holders topped with skulls. Four pillars of skulls surrounded it on for sides.

“I’m thinking this blind monk was a son of Hades,” Will muttered, leaning gently against him as they admired the sheer number of bones collected in one place.

“Yeah, I gotta say, even Hades palace isn’t quite this intense,” Nico joked. “Maybe Dad should find this guy and have him redecorate.”

Will grinned, squeezing Nico’s hand again as he pulled him along to look at more of the room. They spent a good hour down there, quizzing each other on the names and locations of the bones. They did end up drawing attention, but for their excellent knowledge of skeletal structure, not the fact that they were still holding hands. They got stopped by a few tourists who wanted to ask them questions and at one point even had a small crowd going.

“You two are so smart!” a middle-aged lady complimented them after Nico explained that the large flat bones around the skulls of the chandelier were from the pelvis. “Your parents must be so proud!”

They both glanced at each other, thoughtfully. Would Hades or Apollo care? What about their mothers?

The laughed about it later over ice cream from a shop next to the ossuary.

“I think Apollo’d be creeped out by this place,” Will laughed. “No way he’d go into the crypt.”

“Hades would probably be unimpressed. It’s so… peaceful. I’ve never been to a peaceful cemetery before.” Nico was staring at the impressions of skulls made with mosaic tiles on the wall. Then Will’s hand brushed his on the table and his eyes blinked in time with his suddenly racing heart. Will hesitated, less confident when they weren’t plunging gung-ho into a monk’s morbid art project.

Piper’s words echoed in Nico’s ears. _Be straightforward_. Without looking away from the mosaics, Nico reached for Will’s hand, lacing their fingers together. He waited until Will’s fingers settled gently over his knuckles before turning to face him.

Will’s eyes were brighter than the sky, silently asking all the same questions that were floating around in Nico’s head.

“I wasn’t sure,” Will said.

“Yeah,” Nico was too nervous to say anything witty.

“You can be really hard to read sometimes.”

“I get that a lot,” Nico tried.

Will smiled a little. It wasn’t his usual, son of the sun god smile, but a smaller, more self conscious one. It felt private and special.

“I like you,” he said. Nico’s heart collided with his ribcage.

“I like you, too.” Will’s smile widened. He looked like a dork. Nico realized he was smiling too and probably looked equally ridiculous. He didn’t care.

“You can’t actually put a bone chandelier in your cabin,” Will told him. “I think using the bones of dead campers would really put a damper on the space.”

Nico laughed and for once it didn’t sound like he was in pain.

 

They were sitting in a monastery park in a residential district that evening, eating takeaway from a Czech restaurant across the street. Will had held his hand the rest of the day. There were a couple old folks who looked at them a bit funny but no one said anything. They were leaving tomorrow, but Nico almost wished they weren’t. Something about this whole trip felt magical in a very normal and not god related way. He liked that.

“Just so you know, I’m pretty sure Apollo cabin placed bets,” Will said, taking a swig of his drink.

“What?” Coke came out of Nico’s nose.

“My siblings, they’re placing bets about whether or not we’re getting together.”

“Yeah,” Nico choked, trying to mop up the mess he made with napkins. “I got that, thanks, but why exactly? Isn’t this, I don’t know, private?”

Will shrugged. “What is privacy at Camp Half Blood? Didn’t Percy used to take Annabeth to the bottom of the lake to get private time when they first started dating?”

Nico didn’t know how he could be relaxed about the whole thing. “Last I checked, neither of us can breathe under water!”

“Uh, that’s what Hades’ cabin is for. No one would go near there without your permission. That’s why you can’t get the chandelier,” Will joked. Then, more seriously he asked, “Does it embarrass you that much?”

“Yes! Of course it’s embarrassing! I get embarrassed for Piper and Jason all the time!” There was a lot more to it than that, but Nico wanted to be brave for Will. For himself.

Will smiled a little. “Yeah, that’s true.”

“I was finally falling out of all the gossip,” Nico whined. Flopped dramatically into the grass next to Will. Will still looked a little hurt so he added, “I guess it can’t be helped.”

“It can’t?” Will looked hopeful.

Nico shook his head.

“I’m tired of the shadows.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Sedlec Ossuary is awesome.  
> Also, less than a week after I wrote Will's note in his books about breaking the ossicles, I ran into a colleague in the city who had JUST BROKEN ONE OF THEM. It was really hard not to laugh.


End file.
